SEO

Top SEO Tips to Prepare your Website for Black Friday and Christmas

The holiday period is a prime time for consumers. It is of utmost importance that brands are prepared with a strong Christmas SEO strategy. 

Statista Global Consumer Survey found that 75% of consumers would choose to purchase their Christmas gifts online. Optimising and creating effective on-site content is vital when it comes to capitalising on the high purchase intent of the period. 

Fergal Dunn, Senior Account Executive at Verb, outlines some useful tips to ensure that your SEO strategy is as strong as possible over this vital and busy period.

What are seasonal keywords and why are they important?

Seasonal keywords refer to search terms that generate the majority of their search traffic at a particular time of year, such as Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. 

Both Christmas and Black Friday are key dates in the commercial calendar for almost every type of business. There is a correspondingly high volume of seasonal keywords associated with them that can be leveraged to capitalise on search interest levels. 

As you can see with both graphs below, the search terms luxury gifts and black Friday deals accelerates towards the back end of the year. 

Keyword Research: Finding seasonal keywords

As with any SEO strategy, keywords are the foundation of optimising your site for Black Friday and Christmas. It is always important to optimise for the anticipated needs of the customers before they arise; therefore, carrying out keyword research in advance of the festive period is a vital step. 

If you have already carried out keyword research, you can modify your existing keyword set by adding relevant words such as ‘gifts’, ‘Christmas’, or ‘Black Friday deals’. So, your core keyword set becomes Christmas or Black Friday themed with very little effort – for example, ‘tech gifts for christmas’, ‘perfume for christmas’, or ‘tech black friday deals’. 

Most ‘gifting’ related keywords will see a sharp increase in search interest over the festive period. For example, in 2019 ‘technology gifts’ saw an already strong monthly UK search volume of 880, but during December this increased to 2,400. These peaks in search volume can begin to emerge as early as October, so it’s important to have your content strategy in place early to capitalise on this increase in interest levels.

If you’re looking to leverage more search interest, you can find additional ideas with Google Trends or a whole range of keyword tools. You will be able to see when search interest peaks and plan your content strategy accordingly. 

VERB can assist with formulating seasonal keyword and content strategies that will help drive traffic to your website, applying a carefully tailored approach to suit your product or service offering. Your content strategy should cover every stage of the user journey to capitalise on different types of search queries.

Optimising for commercial seasonal keywords

Of course, your Christmas or Black Friday content will depend on the product or service that your site provides. However, the basic principles remain unchanged. Optimising your content with the seasonal keywords you have identified will help you capitalise on the high search interest and purchase intent around this period. In order to do this we suggest the following: 

  1. Focus on the long-tail Christmas or Black Friday related terms to boost its chance of ranking organically over these periods. 
  2. Create a dedicated Christmas section and keep it hidden throughout the rest of the year; this means that it will retain its authority the following year. 

Ensure the Gifting section is added to a prominent position in the main top navigation, and the subcategories are well-linked to both in the navigation and within any text of the homepage and in editorial content. 

Optimising for informational Christmas terms

There is a vast range and volume of informational searches around Christmas and gifting, which should be targeted alongside the more commercial terms. You will be able to target a different set of seasonal keywords by producing and optimising editorial content for the festive period.There are two ways you can go about this: 

1. Create list articles 

E.g. ‘Top Gadget Christmas Gifts for Technology Lovers’ or ‘Best Secret Santa Presents Under £20’. These articles target specific long-tail keywords that might not be targeted on product category pages. They are easy to produce and the list format can be applied to a wide range of gifting categories. 

2. Link to commercial pages 

If you link to more commercial pages from your editorial content this will help drive traffic to the category page and increase its authority. This type of content seamlessly guides the user through the consumer journey and will likely drive up the number of purchases on the site. 

If you’re in need of SEO support in the build up to Christmas, VERB can assist your business or brand in producing the right type of content, and optimising your existing content on your website. We will ensure that you are capturing visibility for searches from a wide range of users. Drop us an email here